Garden Railroading Primer Articles


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Written by Paul D. Race for Family Garden Trains(tm)

This page was started in 1999 to encourage newcomers to garden railroading, and to help them avoid some pitfalls. Since then, the list of articles has grown and has benefitted from many suggestions, corrections, and additions, by industry leaders, professional gardeners, prominent hobbyists, and other authors and friends.

Our goal is not to treat every subject, but to cover the 20% of information about garden railroading that 80% of all beginning garden railroaders need to know. If you want to know why we are making these articles available for free, please visit our article on "Why Our Content is Free".

Please let us know if an article is helpful to you, or if you think it could be made more helpful.

In addition, please remember that all articles are for your personal use only; they are copyrighted by Paul D. Race and may not be copied without permission.

Introduction to Garden Railroading:

Go Outside and Run Your Trains - Updated, April, 2008
Put a Train in your Garden-- Garden Railroading Primer for Gardeners - Updated, April, 2008
Outdoor Railroading Primer for Indoor Railroaders - Updated, April, 2008

Planning a Garden Railroad: (For best results, read all the articles on this page before you get out a shovel, but these articles will be most important while you're doing early planning.

Planning Your Garden Railroad for Watchability - Dreaming up a railroad that folks want to stick around and watch - July, 2006
Planning Your Garden Railroad for Operations - Planning your railroad so that it will be especially fun to operate! - August, 2006
Building a Garden Railroad on a Budget - Updated February, 2008
Themes, Conventions, and Willing Suspension of Disbelief - Develop an "artistic vision" for your railroad that will help it be more rewarding to you and more interesting to visitors. Includes a review of literary and theme park design principles that anyone can apply. Updated April, 2008, with many new photos and examples.
Accessible Garden Railroads - Reducing physical barriers to the world's greatest outdoor hobby. March, 2006
Planning Your Garden Railroad for High Reliability - January, 2001
Which Scale Should I Model? - Updated August, 2005
Garden Railroad Track Options - March, 2005

Garden Railroad Construction Techniques - The articles in this section start easy, small, and temporary, and work toward more permanent and more elaborate. We also try to present new, cost-effective, and easy-to-use techniques in great detail, so even the most inexperienced gardener, landscaper, or carpenter can achieve permanent, quality results.

Introduction to Garden Railroad Construction - An overview of the various recommended construction methods, with guidelines to help you decide which method is best for you - Updated April, 2008
1-Day Railroad - When You Have One Day to Build a Garden Railroad - September, 2005
Raising a Ground-Level Railroad One way to get from a simple, ground-level railroad to a raised railroad without having to shut down operations for the summer - April, 2006
Flextrack and Railbenders - How to get away from preformed curves into graceful right-of-ways. Recommended reading for planning raised railroads - April, 2006
Building a Simple Raised Railroad- The definitive article on the most widely used and robust method for building a raised garden railroad. - January, 2006
HDPE Flexible Roadbed - A more elaborate construction method, suitable for very large or unusual railroads. - Updated March, 2006
HDPE Lumber In the Shop - Shows how to get large amounts of HDPE roadbed ready to install by working "smart" in the shop. Article by Bob Zajicek. - January, 2007
Retaining Walls and Backfill - The definitive article on retaining walls for garden railroads. Includes photos and building tips for the most common ways to support your railroad, with guidelines to help you decide which method is best for you - June, 2006
The Little Railroad That Grew - June, 2003 (This is not an article about construction per se, but it describes how a person might use rock garden techniques and others.)
How We Built Our Garden Railroads - January, 2004. (How several other folks did it their way)

Plants for your Garden Railroad:

Groundcover 101 - Updated August, 2005
Trees for Your Trains - Choosing and Cultivating Dwarf Conifers The definitive article on planning, purchasing, trimming, planting, and maintaining evergreen plants that will give your railroad life and charm all year long - October, 2006
Inexpensive and Low-Maintenance Plants for Garden Railroads - September, 2001
The Secret Life of Perennials - June, 2001
Early Spring Color for your Garden Railroad - Start learning now how to make your railroad sparkle with bright color next Spring, in time to learn the name of things while you can still see them in bloom. Includes a bonus springtime "picture-poem" you can print as a poster! - April, 2006
Gardening Safety Tips - July, 2005

O Gauge Outside

Introduction to O Gauge Outside - The first two articles in a series that will show the "does and don'ts" of building an O gauge garden railroad. Lots of help from John and Gale Blessing; lots of photos from Dawn Hatfield. - May, 2007
Using O Gauge Gargraves Track (Outside) - New January, 2008
Evolution of the B&P Garden Railroad (B&P) An O Gauge Hi-Rail Railroad Designed for Outdoor Use
- Part 1 - Designing an O Gauge Hi-Rail railroad for outdoor use
- Part 2 - Building an HDPE Roadbed Infrastructure That Will Survive Las Vegas Summers
- Part 3 - Finishing Touches on an HDPE Roadbed - Updated February, 2008
- Part 4 - Installing Atlas Nickel-Silver O-Gauge track on HDPE Roadbed - New May, 2008
Using Lionel's TrainMaster™ Command Control Outside - October, 2007
Fred Young's Ground-Level Arizona Railroad - A ground-level railroad that has lots of operational options and some unique ways of adapting to the Arizona summer sun. New February, 2008

Other Planning and Installation Issues:

Ideas for Solar Lighting - Now's a good time to experiment with bringing light to the darkened corners of your railroad. Updated April, 2008
Water Features and Garden Railroads - - New information and photos about autumn and winter pond care, updated Fall, 2006
Large Scale Power and Control - Updated August, 2005
Making Concrete Rocks and Cliffs - Updated, September, 2007
Electrical Safety and Garden Railroading - Rules of thumb for safe use of electricity in any garden, especially a garden railroad. August, 2002

Structures - February, 2005

Stuff to Have on Hand - Supplies to keep around so you don't have to run to the store every time you want to work on a model. Feb., 2005
Painting Plastic Structures - Updated October, 2007, with new photos and expanded directions.
Painting a Piko Gingerbread House - A detailed procedure on how to prepare a small plastic building kit for years of unique, attractive service - NEW February, 2008,
Painting the Colorado Model Structures Tower - A simple and inexpensive building project to help you get started customizing buildings for your railroad - October, 2007
Glazing Windows with Lucite® - A step-by-step example to help you add a professional finishing touch to your buildings - October, 2007
Recycle Road Spam - New January, 2008, Clean up your neighborhood and get free building materials.
Trashbashing 101 - December, 2003
Mullions - Start collecting vegetable trays now so you have windowframes for your buildings later. April, 2003
Trestles 101 - Introduction to building trestles for your garden railroad - it's not as hard as it looks! - July, 2007
Building a Simple Foam Viaduct - An easy and possibly impressive way to fill the gap between your raised railroad and the ground - September, 2007

Details for your Garden Railroad

Choosing Figures for your Garden Railroad - Updated, April, 2008

Reference Information and Things to Think About

Visit our Garden Train Store™ Buyer's Guide Pages

Introduction to Train and Car Cards - This is a companion article to the Planning Your Garden Railroad for Operations above. This article gives more detail about how folks use various planning techniques to run their railroads more like the real thing. - August, 2006
Idiot-Friendly Digital Cameras for Photographing Trains - Updated, January, 2008
Glossary of Garden Railroading Terms - Updated June, 2005
Getting (and Keeping) the Kids Involved - Updated 7, 2007
Where to Buy Garden Railroading Stuff - Updated 9, 2006
Where Do I Go From Here? - Updated, April, 2008

Other Articles about Garden Railroading and Large Scale - Past Family Garden Trains articles about garden railroading that don't fit neatly into the categories above. Most of them are still wholesome and useful for most purposes.

Letters to the Editor - You may have a question we've already attempted to answer for someone else. Click here to see. This file is updated often. Be sure and stop by every few days for updates.

Other People's Articles

If you want to get "down-and-dirty" technical details on most of the commonly used Large Scale locomotives and rolling stock, refer to George Shreyer's "Technical Tips Page". This page also reviews many power and control solutions for your locomotives, including DCC, Crest/AristoCraft Train Engineer, etc. In fact, George is one of our "gurus," and this resource will be important to you as your railroad grows.

If you want some quick ideas for inexpensive and relatively easy scratchbuilding projects, look at Phil Creer's Toenail Ridge Shortline Articles Page.

Keep watching this space: I always have more articles in the "pipeline."

*Note:

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Note: Family Garden Trains™, Garden Train Store™, Big Christmas Trains™, BIG Indoor Trains™, and BIG Train Store™ are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications (www.btcomm.com). All information, data, text, and illustrations on this web site are Copyright (c) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Paul D. Race. Reuse or republication without prior written permission is specifically forbidden.

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